It seems like one day I was retying tomato plants with no color and, just a couple of days later, I was picking ripe tomatoes! The hot nights and abundant rain during the beginning and middle of August pushed the ripening of vegetables both at my house and at our pantry garden.

Our pantry garden is off to a fabulous start this year with a total of 465.75 pounds of vegetables and herbs. Our year-to-date zucchini total alone is 398.75 pounds.

We picked 66.5 pounds of zucchini, 8 pounds of jalapeños and 22.4 pounds of sweet peppers that were shared with pantry guests at our distribution Aug. 13.

That same week, we had 167.9 pounds of vegetables and herbs donated from our generous community. This included zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, marjoram, garlic chives, parsley, winter savory, mint, sage, oregano and lemon balm.

We picked 60 pounds of zucchini, 11.4 pounds of jalapeños, 24.1 pounds of sweet peppers and 1.1 pounds of basil that were shared with pantry guests Aug. 20.

Along with pantry garden vegetables, the community donated 38.32 pounds of vegetables and herbs including tomatoes, sweet peppers, eggplant, jalapeños, squash, parsley, oregano, thyme, marjoram, sage, winter savory, French sorrel, mint and garlic chives.

In addition to the fresh produce and herbs the pantry garden and our community provided, we also received additional fresh produce from Second Harvest, which included strawberries, nectarines, green peppers, cucumbers, onions, cabbage and corn on the cob.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, we are in the Lehigh Valley Plant-A-Row network, so when we have extra produce that we cannot utilize at our pantry or at our Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative free community meals, we ensure it is shared with another pantry or soup kitchen that can use it. So far this year, we have contributed 566.87 pounds of fresh produce and herbs to the network. Again, sources include our pantry garden, the community and Second Harvest.

Our work nights this month have not required us to water anything, which has been a huge time saver. As a matter of fact, our water tanks are now completely full, so with each rainfall, the water pours out of the top of the tanks and flows onto the grass, seeping down into the beds.

The week of Aug. 17, we purchased two additional 275-gallon water-holding tanks, which are now in the garden but not yet in place. We also purchased a battery-operated pump, so we can transfer water from the primary tanks into the secondary tanks. This will allow us to have more water on hand for the dry spells and allow up to four people to hose water at the same time.

Thank you to Lehigh County for providing us with a grant to purchase these items!

I wrote last month we had hilled our potatoes July 7, but we were due again. The plants this year have grown much larger than last year’s, so they were everywhere, making it nearly impossible to find the walkways between the rows, let alone loosen dirt and hill.

At our work night Aug. 25 and, with the assistance of John Halko and the Girl Scout leaders, a method was devised to get under the plants and pull them back on either side of a walkway so the cultivator could be run through to loosen the dirt. After the first row or so, we had the system nailed down and successfully hilled two-thirds of the larger potato bed.

Our dream team agreed we will be able to knock out the rest at our work night Sept. 1.

For weeks, we have been pecking away to remove the grass that has grown in our sweet potato bed. As of our work night Aug. 25, most of it is now complete, thanks to the perseverance of Jenn Dietz and Sylvia Lee. Also now complete is planting the remaining basil plants, thanks to Sue Butchinski and the Girl Scouts.

Thanks to all our garden volunteers!

Remember, food donations, including garden produce, reusable shopping totes and paper bags with handles may be dropped off 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at the RE/MAX Unlimited office at 1080 Schadt Ave., Whitehall.

If you want your donation to be picked up or if you prefer to drop your donation directly at the pantry, call or text me at 610-379-6823.

Enjoy all that your gardens and summer have to offer! The season is short, so make it memorable.

Editor’s note: This article was written by Gwen Herzog, pantry garden chair.